


between the lines

by kurdoodle



Category: GOT7, Miss A
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, high school sweethearts (almost), post-university AU, wonpil is a great housemate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:22:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22057714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kurdoodle/pseuds/kurdoodle
Summary: Sometimes it takes years to get on the same page.In which Suzy moves next door to Jinyoung, her (almost) high school sweetheart.
Relationships: Bae Suji | Suzy/Park Jinyoung (GOT7)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 13
Collections: #teamprocrastinators' holiday fic exchange 2019





	between the lines

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Naladot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Naladot/gifts).



> shout-out to #teamprocrastinators for always dragging me out of hiatus! 
> 
> this fic is dedicated to ellie, the OG jyp fic queen - i only hope i did this justice. thank you for being a great friend and i know it's been a while since you've been back in fandom but i am so glad you are here :) to the rest of #teamprocrastinators, i am honestly so thankful for our years-long friendships. who knew we'd still be sticking around hehe. here's to another year!

It is a little annoying, actually — the way she keeps showing up in his life. He would say that it’s none of her business to waltz into his apartment complex as if she lives here, except instead of waltzing, she’s stumbling across the hallway trying to shove too many boxes into the elevator at once. So on second thought, maybe she _does_ live here. He watches in slow motion as the box at the top of the stack starts to teeter off balance, and Jinyoung is forced to assert his presence, rushing over to stabilize the box again.

He gulps, peering down at her as she cranes her neck to see who’d helped her. Her mouth forms a surprised ‘O’ and she almost trips backward when the elevator jerks upward to take them to Floor 3. “Jinyoung?” 

“Suzy.”

He wonders why she’s moved back to the area; he recalls seeing on social media that she’d moved back home. 

“I, uh, live on the third floor as well,” Jinyoung clears his throat. “Unless, you’re not actually moving in — and just helping a friend, or delivering something—”

Suzy’s eyes crinkle at the edges as she lets through a smile. From what she remembers, he usually does not stutter this much. It makes her feel the slightest better about being a klutz earlier. The elevator dings and Jinyoung helps her carry the boxes to her empty apartment. 

He finds himself tapping his feet on the hardwood floor, hands in his pockets. “Do you need any help?” he asks, suddenly feeling obligated to help her set up her self-assembled furniture even though he clearly has a term paper due tomorrow. He’ll probably regret it tonight.

At the end of it all, they sit on her couch that the movers had deposited in the living room just a couple minutes before. There is a palpable arm’s distance between them as they stare straight ahead at the TV-less living room wall. “Hey, as a thank you, I should at least, um, order take-out and treat you,” Suzy says. 

At this, Jinyoung turns to her, and for a second, Suzy is transported back to her high school self, fighting not to get sucked into the gravity of his gaze. “I’d like that,” he replies easily, leaning on the plastic wrapped cushion behind him. 

  
  
  
  
  


The thing about Jinyoung is that he was her high school almost-sweetheart. They were in the same class for all years of high school and lived 6 houses down the street from each other. She had the perfect view from her corner window seat to catch him in her line of sight when she stared at the chalkboard. He wore specs whenever he was in class, chewed on his bottom lip when he was concentrating hard, and had nice broad shoulders to look at. 

But best of all, they would often walk home together, and he’d carry her stuff if it was too heavy or throw her a spare umbrella if she forgot one. She liked him for his attention to detail and the ability to figure out what she needed before even she herself knew. In those moments, she almost believed that he could love her as much as she loved him. 

  
  
  
  
  


When he closed the front door behind him, Jinyoung finally had the sense to look at the time. 9PM. He visibly winced, thinking back to the state of his unfinished term paper. 

“You’re back kind of late,” a voice interrupts his thoughts. Wonpil is lounged on their sofa, balancing his laptop on his bony knees. The laptop screen is the only source of light in the room, illuminating Wonpil’s ghost-like face.

“Ugh, turn on some lights,” Jinyoung mutters under his breath as he hits the light switch. 

Wonpil simply hums in response. “What keeps a homebody like you out so late when both you and I know that Professor Jung will be disappointed in his star graduate student if you don’t get your butt working on that paper?” 

“You wouldn’t believe who just moved into our floor.”

“Anyone is better than the party animals that got evicted, I guess.” 

“Yeah.”

Wonpil inspects the dazed look on Jinyoung’s face. “Jinyoung, I have a guess, but don’t kill me for it.”

“Who?”

He grins. “Last name Bae. The one and only. Suzy.”

Jinyoung groans. He hates that Wonpil can read him that easily. He sits next to his housemate and throws a pillow to wipe the smirk off his face. 

  
  
  
  


He wonders where they would be now, if when in his senior year of high school, he had instead kissed her back. They were sharing an umbrella on the way home, huddled close for warmth because Suzy was sensitive to the cold. He had learned these things about her throughout the years and was tempted to wrap her hand in his, but thought better of it. 

They end up a few steps away from her house’s entrance, under the streetlight that acted almost as a spotlight on the two high schoolers. Their puffs of breath were visible in the cool air. They stared at each other for what felt like a good couple of minutes before Suzy broke the silence. 

“I have something to say,” she whispers, inching closer to prevent herself from getting wet from the rain. “I like you, Jinyoung.” 

Then, at once compulsively, at once something perhaps long wished for, by her (and by him, he realizes in hindsight), she tiptoes up and presses her lips against his. He is too shocked to respond and stands there immobilized before jerking away, letting himself get drenched in the downpour. 

His mother scolds him later for being so careless and warns him of catching a cold. He ignores her nagging and heads upstairs to take a warm shower, conflicted emotions coursing through his veins. 

  
  
  
  
  


Suzy starts her new position at an advertising firm, her first job after graduating university. During her commute, she wonders at the world of coincidences. It was a little too humorous to think that after he had rejected her confession that winter of high school senior year, citing reasons like having to focus on the upcoming college entrance exams, that they would end up going to the same university in Seoul, too. Together — just, well, separately. 

They are randomly assigned to the same project group for a general education history class in their freshman year, their first time actually seeing each other since high school graduation. Once, after their other two group mates had left for their next classes, Suzy is alone with him, papers scattered in front of them. 

“Looks like both our college entrance exam studying paid off, huh?” Suzy can’t help but comment. She tempers it with what she hopes is a genuine smile. The aftertaste that remains is slightly bitter.

  
  
  
  
  


Jinyoung is starting to get a weird sense of deja vu. He finds himself looking for her in the mail room, in the building lobby, at the bus stop in front of their complex, and looks twice at every brunette with the same hair style or fashion style in hopes that maybe he could catch a glimpse of her. When he’s trying to brainstorm PhD dissertation topics, he sometimes daydreams and finds himself writing her name on his notebook instead of the next big idea on 20th century literature. Wonpil would kindly laugh in his face if he found out, so Jinyoung is careful to scribble them out.

He feels teleported back to a time when he would let his gaze linger a bit longer than normal when he spotted her at the university cafeteria laughing with her friends, no longer formally included in her social circles. He had wondered, though, if the fact that they still ended up at the same school despite his attempts to push her away meant that perhaps that they were meant to reconnect. But after the freshman group project ended, they never really did. 

It is the necessary tradition of going back home for Chuseok that makes their paths cross again in their third year of university. In the hustle and bustle of busy travelers, they bump into each other on the train platform. “Going home?” Suzy flashes him a grin.

“Home sweet home,” Jinyoung replies, falling into a rhythm as if they had never really fallen out of rhythm in the first place. 

They sit together for the whole train ride home, and maybe it is the idea that they are stuck together for this sanctioned amount of time makes him bold enough to ask her more about how she is doing. 

“I’m doing okay. Life is good,” she says cryptically. 

What Jinyoung figures out is that Suzy is like a closed book with the pages glued shut. He begins to feel like he wants to read her, every thin-lipped smile, the crease of her forehead, the flicker of her eyes. In high school, she was a bit easier to read, like the glue had not yet solidified, or perhaps had dissolved in the hushed whispers as they walked home. In university, their time apart had left him a little out of practice.

“Mmm,” Jinyoung murmurs, watching the buildings whiz by. His knee bumps into hers, and he apologizes and straightens up in his seat. “It’s been - okay for me, too.”

  
  
  
  


In truth, she had been in love with him up to the Chuseok train ride. 

The train attendant comes by to check on a malfunctioning door on the train car they’re in.

“You’re doing well in school?” Suzy asks in the commotion, though she already knows the answer. Jinyoung has always been the more studious one, carrying the expectations of his family on his shoulders and would sacrifice many a good thing for it, too. She remembers that in the hell hole of high school senior year, he barely made time to hang out with his friends, and Wonpil would nag him to no end. 

“Yeah, it’s not as intense as before, but I need to think about graduate school applications now.”

“Oh? What are your plans for that?”

“I might pursue teaching at the university level.”

Suzy’s lips curl into a smile. “Professor Park Jinyoung sounds pretty good to me,” she laughs.

Inside, though, she wonders whether in the midst of his plans, there would ever be any room for her, or whether she had any right to even ask for that anymore.

  
  
  
  
  


He knocks on her door, willing his feet to stay still. The door swings open. “Oh, hi.” Her hair sticks up in interesting places and he can see the faint smudges of her eyeliner smeared outside her eyelid creases. Why he sees this all in high definition, he does not quite know.

“Your mail somehow ended up in my mailbox,” Jinyoung shoves a couple envelopes toward her. He looks past her to the kitchen and sees the refrigerator wide open with barely anything inside. She follows his gaze and her cheeks redden. 

“Oh, yeah, shouldn’t waste electricity like that. Sorry. I was just too rushed to get to the door.” She shuffles over and shuts the refrigerator door.

“Did you eat yet?” Jinyoung blurts out. And before he gives her time to refuse, he adds, “I’ll treat you. And we don’t have to invite Wonpil this time.” Last time, Wonpil had insisted on tagging along because what they were getting was exactly what he was craving, and then he ended up getting a little too tipsy and Jinyoung had to shepherd him home like a lost sheep. 

“If you ditch me again, you’re dead meat,” is all she says, but she smiles and grabs her purse. 

It’s in moments like these that Jinyoung dares to let himself hope.

  
  
  
  
  


There are certain things that Suzy has learned for purposes of self-defense. Things like: Suzy doesn’t get her heart broken; she’s the heartbreaker. Suzy doesn’t pursue; she gets pursued. And when they get off that train ride and go back to their own family homes for the Chuseok holiday, she tells herself that one heartbreak would have been enough from the same boy.

For purposes of self-defense, she throws herself at the first boy who was decent and good-looking and liked her first. Myungsoo, a senior in her major, with empty promises and happily-ever-afters that seemed convincing for the first 6 months, but fell apart after he graduated and succumbed to work life. So much for not getting her heart broken.

But now that she is slipping into the pressures of work life herself, she sees things from the other side now: the stress he must have felt and the comfort but also extra burden of having a romantic relationship on top of that. 

And so when Jinyoung invites her out to eat dinner with him once in a while, she doesn’t have the heart to tell him that — actually, yes, she has already eaten a little because working overtime involves stress eating or stupid corporate social gatherings with too much beer or simply losing her appetite because of her sleazy manager. She wonders if he would even understand since school is all he’s ever really known. In some ways, she wishes she could go back.

  
  
  
  
  


“You know you have girls all googly-eyed at you all the time,” Wonpil notes one day, wolfing down ramyun with a satisfied slurp. 

Jinyoung rolls his eyes. “I’m not thinking of dating right now,” he responds. 

Wonpil has heard this all before. “Yes, blah blah, ‘I date for marriage,’ ‘I don’t have a career yet,’ Why don’t you just ‘date for marriage’ right now? No one says you need to get married within the next 4 years.”

“Speak for yourself. You’re the one who already has a job, and look who’s still single too,” Jinyoung mutters under his breath. 

“My dating pool consists of other elementary school teachers — which, would be kind of scandalous to be honest — and random people I see at the convenience store. You, my friend, are a different story.” 

Jinyoung knows who he’s talking about, but he’s not about to say her name.

“It’s not realistic.”

“You’re just afraid.”

“I’m not ready, I said. Plus, I have exams and papers to write.” Jinyoung lets his coffee mug hit the table a little too loudly. 

Wonpil quirks up an eyebrow in acknowledgement. “Let me tell you something,” he leans in closer. “I don’t think you’ll ever be ready at this rate, but don’t come sulking back to me when she slips away again.”

  
  
  
  
  


The next Chuseok, a year after the train ride, Jinyoung comes back home to his mother’s homemade soups and noodles and feels like he’s in heaven. 

“Why don’t you invite Suzy over sometime while you’re here?” 

Jinyoung stares back at his mother, incredulous.

“What? You used to find every excuse to invite that girl over for dinner, back in the day. You both got along together so well,” she smiles, looking off into the distance.

Jinyoung had heard from Wonpil who heard from Nayeon that she is dating a senior named Myungsoo. He had even spotted them once at a cafe, and he made it a point to never go to that cafe ever again.

“You should treat her well, Jinyoung-ah.”

“Mother, _please_.” 

He didn’t have the heart to tell her that there wasn’t any chance for anything like that anymore.

  
  
  
  


The train announcer’s voice emanates through the speakers.

“Oh, our stop is next,” Jinyoung says. “Are you excited to finally go home and eat your mother’s cooking? I know I am.”

Suzy realizes that they are running out of time. 

“Jinyoung,” she blurts his name abruptly. “Did you ever regret it?”

She can see that he understands her question, because of the way his gaze darkens and his breath gets caught in his throat. 

The people across the aisle start getting up to exit to the platform. Something flashes through his eyes that she can’t quite pinpoint. “No,” he says. “I don’t.”

She nods, takes a deep breath, and gives him her bravest smile. “Okay, let’s go then.”

They part ways at the train station, both their families picking them up in separate cars.

That was when Suzy had finally fallen out of love with Jinyoung.

  
  
  
  


She starts avoiding him in the lobby and at the mailroom, and spins on her heel the opposite way when she so much as hears his voice down the hallway. Somehow, after all these years, his voice still had the same effect on her. His was the voice she wanted to fall asleep to, to whisper lullabies when insomnia called, to laugh with her about the latest flabbergasting work drama. She would even love listening to him nerd out about the latest book he was reading. Instead, she runs away.

Once, in a fit of drunken sorrow, she reaches out to Wonpil. He knocks on her door and comes in, feeling a little out of place in her one-bedroom apartment. “I didn’t expect you to text me,” is all he says. But he sits next to her on the couch and hands her a water bottle.

“I mean, I’m honored, of course, but I always thought you would text Jinyoung instead.” Even in her daze, she sees his pursed lips in concern. “I think we gotta help you take out some of your trash,” he murmurs under his breath, noting her overflowing garbage bin. 

“I want to see him,” she whispers.

“Then why don’t you go to him?”

The truth comes out, then. “Of course I want to go to him. But I don’t want to inconvenience him or get in the way of his studying. I don’t want to push him away from me like that.” 

She doesn’t want him to know that actually, she is struggling at work and wonders if she is really cut out for this, in desperate need of a dose of Jinyoung’s idealism and stability that she never seemed to have (though she often pretended). But after Myungsoo had bitingly told her in the past that he was tired of her demanding too much of his time when he was already drowning in his own problems, she began to stop demanding things from people. For purposes of self-defense: smile, take things as they are, trust that they will get better somehow. 

She feels like Wonpil can see right through her so-called walls of self-defense. “But aren’t you pushing him away anyway if you keep doing this?”

Maybe she was falling back in love, or maybe she hadn’t completely let go in the first place.

  
  
  
  


The next week, her WiFi chooses the absolute worst timing to give out on her, right when she needed to submit an important report. She debates whether she should just go to a cafe down the street but then she shudders remembering the earlier news reports of a string of petty thefts that had been happening in their area. So, her feet move on autopilot until she is at Jinyoung’s front door. 

When he finally opens the door, she immediately wants to flee. “My WiFi is not working and I have something I need to do for work.” She hugs her laptop closer to her chest. “I — I could just go to a cafe if it is not a good time.”

Jinyoung realizes that it is midnight and wonders what his mother would say if she found out he just threw her out to the wolves. Also, he hadn’t seen her for more than a few seconds for the past few weeks. Her bare feet are fidgeting in her gray house slippers, which he finds more than a little endearing. 

“Yeah, come on in,” he gestures, breathing out a sigh of relief. As much as he did not want to admit it, he had missed her. 

After about half an hour of them sitting shoulder to shoulder clicking away at their laptops — her on her report and him drafting emails to his professors — he hands her a cup of chamomile tea. “This will help you sleep better tonight,” he says. “Wonpil mentioned you’ve been tired lately.”

She looks surprised. “Oh, what else has he told you,” she sips the tea cautiously.

“That’s all,” Jinyoung cracks a strained smile. “I’ve been a little worried about you too and wondered if everything was okay.”

Suzy stops mid-sip and puts down her cup. “Well, I feel like now this report is submitted, a big load is off my shoulders. My manager was actually bothering me a lot about it, but it’s not my fault that he gave me double the workload as everyone else on the team.”

“That doesn’t seem very fair.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“I’m sorry you had to go through that. I hope that he can be more reasonable next time. Let me know if you ever need help with smacking some sense into him.”

“It’s not like you to be violent, Jinyoung,” she laughs. 

“No, but on your behalf, I’d consider it.”

She looks at him strangely now at his disclosure. 

He clears his throat. “Hey, uh, are you going home for Chuseok this year? I haven’t booked train tickets yet, but — want to go home together?”

  
  
  
  


And here they are again, at the train platform, but this time according to plan instead of on accident. Wonpil had left earlier than them saying he had some family business to attend to first, but before he left, he did not forget to give Jinyoung an exaggerated wink and blow him a cringey kiss. 

When they get seated, he could tell that there’s a lot on her mind. She keeps playing with her hair and looking down at her knees and out the window and really, anywhere but in his direction. But soon, they fall back into rhythm, like they had never fallen out of rhythm in the first place. They talk about a lot of things: her co-workers, how her grandma is doing, his dissertation topic, and the pros and cons of living in Seoul. 

Then, to his surprise, she sits up straight and turns toward him. “Jinyoung,” she blurts out his name abruptly. “Did you ever regret it?”

Jinyoung blinks once, then twice. He gulps. The weird sense of deja vu returns. They are no longer the naive university students they once were. Regret requires a little hindsight. He thinks now about all the lost time and how he had thought that life only gives one chance — and if you blow it, it’s over. That was his philosophy with his studies, with friendships, and yes, with her, too. And yet here they are again, almost a copy-paste of a scene from two years ago. Life does give more than one chance sometimes.

“Yeah, I did. I do, a lot,” he finally divulges. 

And he swears he can see the beginnings of tears glistening in her eyes. He is overwhelmed again with the familiar feeling of wanting to understand her, read between the lines of her furrowed eyebrows and thin-lipped smiles and sometimes cryptic words. 

“Why?” is all she says now, but he can hear the tinges of regret in her voice too.

“Because, there’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a while.”

He doesn’t bother to look around at his surroundings. No one expects Jinyoung to be the type to do PDA in public, let alone kiss a girl on a crowded train car. But he leans forward, stares at her lips and back into her eyes, and when she doesn’t move away, he presses his lips onto hers. 

After a few seconds, he pulls back just a few centimeters. “I’ve always wondered how things would be different and where we would be now if I had kissed you back when we were in high school,” he whispers.

Suzy smiles, wraps her arms around his neck, and tugs him forward. Finally, she allows herself to be seen, vulnerable, her walls of self-defense dissolving away like glue. She melts into his arms and kisses him back. 

Somehow, despite all that, they feel like they are right where they are supposed to be.

  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> *covers eyes* well, that was your dose of holiday cheesiness xoxo


End file.
